Tea partier's hatred isn't same as Weathermen's

By conflating “hate” preached by Weathermen in the 1960s with “hate” preached by some tea partiers today The Patriot’s July 20 editorial “Tea party movement” fails to recognize a crucial moral and rational difference in the direction of the “hate.” The Weathermen directed their “hate” against violent U.S. institutions of State involved in literal mass murder against three countries, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, with a likely number killed in the range of 4-5 million (real genocide), and millions more maimed and deformed. We can disagree with the Weathermen’s tactics, but their outrage was morally correct. Might we paraphrase Goldwater: “Extremism in defense of innocents slaughtered by the powerful is no vice”?

We might consider our response if German students bombed government facilities to protest German atrocities in 1941, or if Soviet students bombed buildings in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (nowhere near as horrendous as the U.S. attacks on Southeast Asia). Honest answers will teach important lessons about our morality.

Much tea party hatred is directed not against powerful victimizers (that takes courage and presents real risks) but against the victims (always an easy target with virtually no risk). That The Patriot-News seemingly cannot tell the difference is troubling.